Lady of the Wasteland

by Jon Jacks

  ‘Of course it’s ridiculous! Morgana’s hardly likely to let you kill her so easily, is she?’

  The lady despondently glanced down at Viviana.

  ‘She let her guard down–’

  The policewoman guffawed in disbelief.

  ‘All this way – traveling across the centuries – and you still get it all so spectacularly wrong!’

  The lady angrily glared back at her; she wasn’t used to being so insulted, so mocked.

  ‘So you know I’ve come from the past, know I came seeking…information, regarding my powers–’

  ‘Your lost powers, Coventina! Oh, of course, you think you still have them for the present: after all, didn’t you foresee – with your remarkable gift of foresight – that your powers were under threat? While foolish Morgana, well, she’d ever so carelessly left magical traces of her flight into the future, allowing you to oh so cleverly track her down!’

  Coventina glanced down at the dead Viviana once more as she tried to quickly work out what all this new information meant.

  Why was she having such trouble thinking clearly?

  Why was she feeling dazed, weak, even strangely empty as if…?

  She tried to cast a simple spell to one side, a simple matter of transforming the chairs she’d formed, transforming them back into the bench.

  Nothing happened.

  She no longer had any magical powers.

  *

  Chapter 20

  Who am I?

  The most handsome man she had ever seen was smiling down at her from a high tower. It was a smile, she found herself wanting to believe, of recognition.

  He vanished from the window.

  Was he on his way down? she wondered. On his way to greet her?

  Could he tell her who she was?

  Within the courtyard below that tower, a tree was strangely growing upside down, its roots in the air, its branches snaking into the ground.

  It seemed apt, somehow. Symbolic of the way her life felt as if it had all been turned upside down.

  ‘Viviana!’

  The boy – she could now see that he was more boy than man – was exiting a door at the base of the tower. He was waving to her, elatedly running towards her.

  Viviana? Was that her name?

  It seemed familiar, somehow.

  Yes: wasn’t one of her names Vivienne, or something like that?

  One of her names?

  How many names did she have?

  Just the one, obviously.

  Viviana.

  Otherwise, why would this boy, who obviously knew her, call her by that name?

  The boy was standing before her now, his grin one of familiarity, of friendship, maybe even love: but it changed to one of amused bemusement. He stepped back a little, intently staring into her eyes, noting the glaze of confusion there.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concerned. ‘You look…a little lost?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘I just…just seem a little bewildered by everything: as if I’ve woken up from a deep sleep, and still haven’t fully come out of it just yet.’

  He took her hand, smiled kindly once more.

  ‘You’ve haven’t come across any wizards or fays who have cast a spell over you?’ he chuckled mischievously.

  She laughed with him, hoping she was hiding her uncertainty.

  Who was he?

  She wished she could remember.

  Aden?

  Yes: that name seemed familiar, somehow.

  *

  Chapter 21

  From the tower’s high windows, it was possible to see way beyond the confines of the high-walled courtyard.

  The inverted tree standing within the courtyard was, amazingly, the only tree around that could be said to be in any reasonably good condition. All the other trees that the lady could see were leafless, barren, any buds at the ends of the stems dried to a shrivelled, delicate husk.

  They lacked, at the very least, water.

  There was little grass, the sparse clumps she could see hard and wiry, shooting out from mounds of dried earth. Farmers still fruitlessly toiled in the fields, attempting to furrow what was little more than stony ground, yet both they and their horses or oxen were emaciated, little more than bones encased in leathery bags.

  Across it all there hung a melancholy wailing, the moaning of wretchedly dying creatures. This howling lament emanated in particular from the great beasts stranded in the huge, dried hollow she could only presume must have once been a vast lake: for the creatures trapped here in the rapidly drying earth were sea creatures, including whales, squids, even the greatest of sea monsters.

  Naturally, she wanted to ask this Aden why it was like this, why they were surrounded by nothing but a terrible wasteland.

  Aden joined her by the window. He glanced out at the dying land as sadly as she did.

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ he sighed miserably.

  He said it in a way that seemed to her to imply that it hadn’t always been like this, that it might even have all come about relatively recently.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  He regarded her curiously, once again noting her glazed look of bewilderment.

  ‘You can’t remember what it was like before, can you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know why I can’t remember: I don’t know what’s happened to me!’

  He caressed her cheek tenderly, using the back of his hand.

  ‘Can you be certain you didn’t come across some witch or enchantress while you were out on your walk?’

  ‘Is that what I was doing? Out on a walk?’

  He nodded in reply to her query.

  ‘I can’t recall coming across anybody,’ she explained hesitantly. ‘I’m just a touch confused by everything: I don’t know why.’

  He glanced out towards the dried lake.

  ‘It could be to do with all this: this abrupt loss of everything that was good about the land. It affects us all in some way, even if it’s just thirst, a lack of water.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  Now when he looked back at her he frowned anxiously.

  ‘You can’t remember? Even that you can’t remember?’

  She worriedly shook her head.

  ‘I’ll take you to the abbey: they might have something to–’

  ‘Why am I like this?’ She interrupted him, hoping for answers, not medicine. ‘Why can’t I remember what’s happened here, or even remember who I am?’

  ‘You can’t remember who you are?’

  Of course: she hadn’t admitted to him that she’d forgotten her own name!

  ‘You’re Viviana, daughter of the Lord of Moraine,’ he said kindly.

  She took his hands in hers, looked intently into his eyes, seeking honesty.

  ‘And you are?’ she asked uneasily, not wishing to either upset or worry him further.

  Was he her husband? she wondered?

  Her lover?

  Her brother?

  Her friend?

  She had to know!

  ‘You can’t remember me either?’ He chuckled, but incredibly morosely, obviously hurt by her indifference to him. ‘I suppose I should be upset,’ he admitted sagely, ‘but if you can’t remember your own name, I also suppose that would be a little foolish of me.’

  He grinned wanly.

  ‘I’m Aden,’ he said, quickly adding – as he saw in her eyes that she wasn’t satisfied with a name, that she wanted more information about him, ‘I’m a friend, your friend!’

  She flattered herself, perhaps, that there was a glint within his own eyes that pleaded for more from her: something more than friendship.

  She broke off their locked gaze. She turned and looked out across the wasteland.

  ‘How did it happen: the wasteland, I mean.’

  Aden followed her gaze, staring out of the window miserably.

  ‘It’s the Lady of the Lake,’ he sighed forlornly. ‘She va
nished: taking her powers and her lake along with her.’

  *

  Chapter 22

  The Lady of the Lake.

  That was yet another name that seemed familiar to her.

  Not that she knew why.

  ‘Why would she leave us?’ she asked.

  Aden appeared as perplexed as she felt.

  ‘It was her powers that left her, I’ve heard: and so her lake vanished too.’

  ‘Can magical powers just leave someone like that?’

  ‘The natural law of the land; if she killed the king or queen, her powers are forfeit.’

  ‘Why would she kill the king?’

  Rather than a question, she phrased it more like a statement of obvious nonsense; only to add, with less far less assurance, ‘She wouldn’t kill the king; would she?’

  Even as she said this, she wondered if she could be wrong.

  Aden shrugged before answering, as if he might be repeating a rumour he’d heard yet found it hard to believe himself.

  ‘She might have been tricked into killing him; I’ve heard it said that Morgana had abducted the king, transforming him through some magical cunning into a person or thing anyone would find unrecog–’

  ‘A bear?’

  She wasn’t sure why she had suddenly blurted this out. Aden whirled on her, his eyes curiously blazing with barely controlled suspicion and anger.

  ‘Why would you say that?’

  ‘A bear: his name, Ub-Arth,’ she answered innocently, her mind spinning as she attempted to understand why she had assumed this was important.

  And then she had the strangest image of a bear trying to remember whom he was.

  *

  The wasteland had vanished.

  They were now in the strangest of cemeteries, one of long earthworks, of ancient burial mounds, but also of great stone slabs and prone statues.

  ‘Did you do thi–’

  ‘How did you–’

  They accused each other of causing the change.

  It caused them both to grimace in abrupt puzzlement.

  They glanced about themselves, looking for clues as to how this might have happened.

  Naturally, they both immediately recognised the cemetery: it was the one Viviana had visited. And, of course, they had both made sure they had been aware of her recollections.

  ‘I’m Coventina,’ the Lady of the Lake pronounced assuredly, her memories of everything that had happened to her having thankfully returned. ‘You were trying to hide that from me…Morgana?’

  Aden confidently responded to her accusing glare with a triumphant smirk.

  ‘Hide, Coventina? How can you accuse me of such thing, when I was aiding you all the time in your efforts to find me?’

  With a quiver of skin, of his form, Aden became the policewoman.

  ‘It’s so easy to catch someone if you flatter them that they’re chasing you.’

  Coventina’s stare was still accusing, still disbelieving; she wasn’t prepared to accept that this police officer was how the person standing before her really looked. The policewoman appeared unperturbed by the doubtful glare.

  ‘Oh, I only needed to be her ever so briefly, of course–’

  ‘You killed her?’

  ‘Spare me the moral self-righteousness, Coventina,’ the policewoman scoffed bitterly. ‘You’ve killed the king, remember?’

  With yet another shiver of skin, a rippling of form, the policewoman transformed into a woman who could have easily been mistaken for the Lady of the Lake, if it hadn’t been for her hair of sheerest blue.

  ‘You led me to Viviana – to King Arthur – letting me think I’d found you–’

  ‘It was all so deliciously self-fulfilling; you see, I foresaw that you would foresee–’

  ‘Yes, yes; and yet, Morgana…’

  She turned aside and, with a wave of an arm, briefly made a nearby stone flow and swirl as if it were made of water.

  ‘Yes, your powers are back,’ Morgana agreed with an impressed nod of her head. ‘How did you do that?’

  Before Coventina could reply, they were both uncharacteristically startled by a loud rumbling coming from inside one of the nearby tombs.

  It was the tomb featuring the prostrate image of the girl, the one still covered by the slab that a disappointed King Arthur had let fall across it once more. It sounded like someone was trapped inside, trying to get out.

  The slab partially slid off to one side, landing on its base, such that it stood upright against the tomb.

  The lid featuring the figure of the girl was the next to slide aside; not much, but enough to allow Viviana to rise up out of it and jump down to the ground.

  *

  Chapter 23

  Morgana fleetingly gazed Coventina’s way with admiration.

  ‘Now…I am impressed!’

  Then she noticed that Coventina seemed every bit as surprised by Viviana’s appearance as she was.

  ‘Viviana?’

  Coventina spoke uneasily to the approaching girl, as if she recognised only that she could no longer be certain whom she was speaking to.

  ‘I woke up in sheer darkness,’ Viviana answered, mistaking Coventina’s uncertainty for a request for an explanation of how she had ended up here, ‘then when I realised I was in some sort of stone box, panicked and began trying to push the lid up.’

  ‘That’s not possible…not possible at all!’ Morgana stammered hesitantly, her eyes wide with dismay as she intently observed the opened tomb.

  With a furious shriek, she suddenly rushed forwards. Coventina prepared to unleash a charm that would hold her back from striking out at Viviana, until she realised that the tomb was the wailing enchantress’s true goal.

  ‘Look, look, Coventina!’ Morgana hissed as if treacherously deceived, calling the lady’s attention to the inscription upon the slab

  Unlike before, when the bear had partially pulled the slab aside, the full legend was now revealed.

  ‘Queen Guinevere. Beware the betrayer.’

  *

  The effigy gracing the top of the tomb had also changed, it no longer being a representation of Viviana lying their but, rather, one of an enviably beautiful woman.

  ‘You can’t be Guinevere!’ Morgana protested, rushing towards the bewildered Viviana, glowering at her with the same wild-eyed stare she’d had when she’d read the slab’s inscription. ‘You’re Arthur: you’re King Arthur!’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Viviana admitted bemusedly, backing away from this furious woman whom she’d never seen before, glancing Coventina’s way for support. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Stop, stop, both of you,’ Coventina cried out, raising a hand to still Morgana’s fury, using her other hand to draw her attention to a small, glistening flower lying between them.

  It was a cow slip, sparkling with three glittering jewels of dew.

  ‘Our Lady’s Keys,’ Morgana breathed in a mix of awe and fear.

  ‘Opening the Gate of Heaven,’ Coventina agreed with a nod, an equally awestruck sigh. ‘Perhaps we’re about to receive an explanation of what’s really going on here.’

  *

  Chapter 24

  It could have been the most lustrous of rainbows, only one of just three colours, of sheerest blue, glittering green, and a red portion consisting of roaring, shimmering flames.

  Despite its surprising flimsiness – it shook, as if incapable of bearing their combined weight – they were all using it as a bridge.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ Coventina declared urgently, taking Viviana’s hand in hers and breaking into a swiftly floating run. ‘It exists only fleeting, for the briefest of moments.’

  Viviana noticed that the other woman was also hurrying to cross the bridge, utilising the same kind of effortlessly flowing run. Even so the bridge was so insubstantial, as if constructed of little but clouds and light, that it swayed ominously. More frightening still, the bridge appeared to stretch on forever, arching over two gre
at rivers of boiling, seething waters.

  Fortunately, they were all traversing the bridge far more rapidly than Viviana would have believed possible. Moreover, it seemed to her to be becoming increasingly more firm and substantial, the thin stems of a tree merging and intertwining with its shimmering tone here and there. These stems became branches, then a thick trunk, a trunk that became gradually thicker, until it was this rather than the bridge that they found themselves rushing across.

  In fact, she realised, it was far too gnarled and dark to be a trunk.

  It was a great root, one of the massive roots she had come across earlier when she had descended into the dragon’s realm. There didn’t appear to be any dragon here, however, this seemingly being an offshoot, one curling and coiling its way up into a more airy, far brighter realm.

  The root curled and coiled its way through the sparkling air, leading them to a land of flowers, of cow slips, foxgloves, poppies, snowdrops, and lily of the valleys.

  Of snakes, too: small serpents, swiftly writhing by them along the root, each carrying a glittering dew drop within its mouth, all heading down towards a small lake or well lying just below and sheltered by the thick root.

  As if the Lady of the Lake and her companion knew where to go, they slowed their pace as they followed the serpents down towards the well.

  Within the very centre of the well there were two swans, facing each other as if very much in love, their gracefully arching necks forming the symbol of a heart.

  Yet as the three of them drew closer to the well, the swans abruptly broke apart, like a heart shattering.

  From the midst of the waters of the well there now arose a sword, held firmly upright, but one with a severely broken blade.

  A hand held the handle of that sword: and as the sword continued to rise up from the waters, so did the hand, then an arm, until a thoroughly haggard woman was hovering above the centre of the well.

  Still hovering above the waters, she swiftly floated across the well towards the approaching women, her darkly glowering eyes fixed firmly on an increasingly nervous Viviana.

  Viviana felt as if she should run. Perhaps sensing this, Coventina reassuringly took her by her arm.

  ‘This is Love,’ she whispered soothingly, ‘arising from the holy Well of Memory.’